Locked (Unfinished)
by jayscrufflee
Summary: A quick story I started for NaNoWriMo but never finished. It tells Portal from Chell's POV, with a plot change near the end.
1. Prolouge

The rounded glass cover on the stasis pod snapped open with a loud hiss. Light flooded the dark pod, hurting the occupant's eyes. She sat up, unsure of her surroundings. Unsure of how she got to this place. Unsure of who she_ was. _She looked around, trying to see if she could remember anything. She was in a small, enclosed glass box. The floor was checkered tile, cut off by a glass wall about four feet away from her. The glass wall ran from the floor to the eggshell colored ceiling. A single light protruded from it, casting a warm glow over her small cage. The only furnishings in the room with her were the pod she awoke from, a toilet, and a small table. Atop the table, a radio was playing a light, carefree tune, which was the opposite of how she felt at the moment. She got off of her pod and walked over to the table. Aside the radio was a mustard yellow coffee cup, and a clipboard. She picked up the clipboard and began to read it.

**Test Subject #037**

**Name: Chell [Redacted]**

_So that's my name_, Chell thought. She looked over the rest of the clipboard. On it was information about her height, weight, and an x-ray of her body. She put the clipboard down. _How did I get here? _She thought. _Where exactly _is _here? Where is everyone? _The questions consumed her mind so much that she didn't notice the small glass box she was in begin to move up. As she began her ascent, a pale white glow began to wash over Chell. With a sudden decisiveness, she decided that no matter what, she would speak to nobody in this place until she got some answers.

_If there is anybody in this place, _she thought.

And then a voice began to speak.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an unfinished story I wrote for NaNoWriMo but I abandoned. I don't intend on continuing it unless someone wants me to. I just thought I should post it here. The chapters are short and in my opinion, bad, so be warned.**


	2. Chapter 1

"Hello, and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center," a female, computerized voice said.

_Again? _Chell thought. _This is my first memory of being in this place…_

"We hope your brief detention in the relaxation vault has been a pleasant one." The voice continued. "Your specimen has been processed, and we are now ready to begin the test proper."

_Test? _She thought. _I didn't sign up for any tests… _She began to worry about just what kind of tests these were going to be.

"Before we start, however, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all Enrichment Center activities, serious injuries may occur. For your own safety, and the safety of others, please refrain from…"

_Good, now I might get some answers. Or at least be told what _not _to do in here. _Chell thought.

"Por favor por dondes faya mucho gracias nadas-" The voice said, and then static.

_Damn it! _Chell thought. Was _nobody _going to give her any kind of answers?

"-Stand back. The portal will open in three… two… one…"

On one, a bright orange colored circle opened in the wall next to Chell. She immediately backed up, and, with a newfound curiosity, peered into it. To her surprise, she saw herself! She looked outside of the glass box into the room around her. A hospital looking room surrounded her, and on a wall opposite the glass case, a matching blue circle gazed back at her.

_Were these really portals? _Chell thought. She looked again though the orange 'portal' and indeed saw herself. _If there are linked together, then couldn't I just… _She jumped through the orange portal, and came out the blue one, now inside the larger room.

_Incredible! _She thought. To her knowledge, portals were mythical. She had no idea someone had managed to actually create them.

With one last look through the blue portal, Chell began to walk around her glass prison and to wherever this room ended.

As she began to walk, she noticed her feet made a hard _clack _sound. Looking down, she saw black and white boots on her feet. _What do these do? _She wondered. She considered taking them off, but, rather than tempt fate, she left them on and continued to a semicircular door on the far wall of the room.

As she approached the door, it slid open, and she proceeded into the room. Inside was a giant red button. Chell walked over to it, and then, curiosity getting the best of her, she stepped onto it. It made a cheerful sounding _beep _when her weight was applied to it. A blue trail of dots went from the button to the door, and, following the trail with her eyes, saw that they went to a door much like the one she had used to enter. Chell stepped off the button and began to walk towards the door, but as soon as she had stepped off, the door snapped shut. Beginning to understand how it worked, she searched the room for anything to put on top of the button. Her eyes rested on a gray cube sitting in the far corner of the room. Walking over to it, she picked it up and brought it over to the button, dropping it onto it.

_Beep. _The button sounded, and the door snapped open once again. Chell began to walk over to it, and as soon as she had passed through, the computerized voice returned.

"Excellent. Please proceed into the chamber lock after completing each test."

_So this was a test, _thought Chell. _That wasn't that bad._

"First however, note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it. For instance, the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube."

Chell looked back at the cube she had used to open the door, then back down the hallway through the doorway. At the end rested a trail of particles emanating from two arches on the wall.

_So that 'Material Emancipation Grill' will destroy anything the voice doesn't want leaving this room. _Chell thought. She looked down at her feet. _What about my boots? Or my clothes? Or worse, me?_

Dwelling on these thoughts for only a moment, Chell walked over to the end of the hall, towards the Emancipation Grill. With the determined mindset that she was going to make it through these tests, she charged through the field. Once through, she inspected herself. Everything on her appeared to be fine, including her boots and clothes. Looking up, she saw a large elevator resting in a small circular room. The doors to the elevator opened, as if inviting her inside. Walking inside, Chell wondered what was going to come next.


	3. Chapter 2

As the elevator screeched to a halt and the doors opened, the computer voice began to speak again.

"Please place the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube on the 1500 Megawatt Aperture Science Super Colliding Super Button," the female voice said.

As Chell proceeded into the chamber, she noticed three enclosed glass rooms. Each room had something different in it; one had a cube, the second a button, the third the exit door. Inside each room were two arches, similar to the ones used for the Emancipation Grills, but there were no particles in between. As she looked around, Chell also noticed a button in front of each of the glass rooms. She approached the button in front of the room with the cube, and pressed it. Suddenly a blue portal opened in the glass room, and an orange portal opened on the wall behind her.

_Oh, so it's cubes and buttons with portals, _ Chell thought. _Easy enough._

Chell walked over to the orange portal and stepped through it. She came out the blue portal, in the first enclosed glass room. _This whole portal thing is a little disorienting, _she thought, walking over to the cube. Picking it up, she brought it back to the blue portal and went though. Setting the cube down, she walked over to the button in front of the second glass room and pushed it. The blue portal switched positions, and Chell walked over to the orange portal, and brought the cube into the second room.

_I'm getting the hang of this, _she thought. After putting the cube on the button, she walked out of the blue portal and pushed the final button in front of the third glass room. The blue portal once again switched positions, and she walked to the orange portal, and over to the door.

_When will this end? _She thought.

The elevator came to rest in front of the door for the second test chamber. Walking through, her thoughts were interrupted by a loud _zap _coming from inside the main chamber. Walking over to a window overlooking it, she peered down and saw a small, white gun sitting atop a pedestal. The pedestal turned, and when it stopped, the gun fired a blue portal. _So thats the thing that makes portals?_ Chell thought. The computerized voice came on again.

"Please note that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol, but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill, which may…" Chell stopped paying attention. _So that thing really can harm me, _she thought. Seeing an Emancipation Grill on the other side of the room, by the exit door, Chell shivered. Turning to her right, she saw the door snap open after the voice stopped speaking. Chell walked though the door and down the stairs.

Seeing a small hole in the wall in front of her, she stopped and peered into it, narrowly missing a blue ball of energy being shot at her face. Jumping back, Chell saw that the blue ball of energy had hit a wall and formed a portal. Walking through it, she came out in an orange portal on a raised platform. On the ground was the portal 'gun' on top of the turning pedestal. Jumping down, Chell finally realized what the boots were for. A fall from that raised platform, which was at least five feet up, would have normally at least stung. _I guess these boots absorb any shock from falling from high distances, _Chell thought. She began walking over to the moving pedestal. Reaching it, she put her hands out and took the gun. Her hands sagged for a moment under the sheer weight of the thing. _This must weight at least five pounds, _Chell thought.

"Very good. You are now in possession of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. With it, you can create your own portals." The computer voice said.

_Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device… A…S…H…P…D… Ash…pod? _Chell thought.

"These intra-dimensional gates have proven to be completely safe. The device, however, has not."

_Oh, well that's reassuring._

"Do not touch the operational end of the device. Do not look directly at the operational end of the device..." The voice said. Chell thought back to just a few minutes ago, when she was almost impaled by a portal being fired.

"…In liquid, even partially. Most importantly, under no circumstances should you….-" The voice cut to static.

_It's like they almost want me to die, _thought Chell as she fired a blue portal with the gun and went thought it, and approached the elevator. It once again was open expectantly.

Before she walked in, however, she looked back at the chamber. Noticing a security camera on the wall, she aimed the portal gun at it, and fired. It fell off the wall as a portal formed behind it.

_If you want me to die in here, I'm not going to let you watch, _Chell thought, walking into the elevator.


	4. Chapter 3

**_Douglas Rattman ran down one of the long hallways of the Enrichment Center. He was late, and today was a very important day. It was the day they had all been preparing for since back when Cave Johnson was alive. It was the day they were going to activate their Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System for the first time._**

**_As he reached the lab he was going to be in for the activation, he paused for a moment and looked at his barley visible reflection in the plaque that numbered the door. This was going to be a day that went down in history, after all, and he wanted to look good in case anyone wanted to take his picture. _**

**_Feeling satisfied with his appearance, he opened the lab door and went inside. His partner on this project, Henry, sat hunched over a stack of paperwork. Hearing Doug come in, he turned around with a dissatisfied look on his face._**

**_"Where have you been? She's getting activated in less than 8 hours, and I've had to fill out all these contracts by myself!" He said, angrily._**

**_Doug approached the table Henry was sitting at and looked over the papers. They were all contracts for applying for patents on the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. Aperture had had some problems with their competing company, Black Mesa, stealing Aperture's products before._**

**_"Well, I'm here now, so give me half of it," Doug said, gesturing to the paperwork. Henry grabbed a large portion of the documents and handed them to Doug. _**

**_"This thing better love us to death for all the work we put into it," Henry said, going back to filling out his stack of papers._**

The shaking elevator rose into its position in front of the entrance to Chamber 3. _They really need to work on making those things safer, _Chell thought, still a little dizzy from how much the elevator had shaken on the last trip. Walking into the chamber, she looked around.

The chamber was significantly bigger than the previous ones she had been in, being at least as big as 15 feet in length. To her left was the exit door, with two trails of small circles protruding from it to two buttons. To her right were 2 platforms, one with an orange portal atop it, and one with a cube. Even farther to her left was a pit, about 8 feet deep. It contained a cube.

The robot voice once again came on. "This next test is very dangerous. Please be careful." The voice stayed off for a few seconds, then came on again. "Additionally, the Enrichment Center staff would like to ask you to refrain from destroying vital testing apparatus."

Chell thought back to the previous chamber, when she had shot down a security camera. _Oh, you don't like that, do you? _She thought. Spotting another camera above the pit to her left, Chell aimed the portal gun, and fired at it. A blue portal once again formed around the camera, making it fall to the ground.

"Please do not destroy vital testing apparatus. The Enrichment Center does not appreciate it," The voice said, sounding slightly less emotionless than before.

_If that thing really is a computer, it looks like they gave it some emotion, _Chell thought. Laughing to herself, she thought it impossible for a computer to have emotion.

After her brief moment of laughter, Chell's normal solitary look plastered her face once again. She began to look at how to solve the chamber. It didn't take her long to figure out that she needed to put the two boxes on the buttons to open the door, and getting to the boxes was no problem at all. With the use of her portal gun, Chell quickly had both boxes on the buttons and the door open. As she walked toward the exit, she paused for a moment. Looking back at the room she was in, she noticed that there were no more security cameras in the room. Walking back to one of the buttons, she picked up a cube and took it off.

The door snapped shut, and Chell took one more look around to see if there was any way for anyone to watch her, but there wasn't. She had taken out the only camera in the room.

_This could be the only chance I have to do this, _she thought, walking over to the corner of the room and getting down on her hands and knees. There was a very small crevice in between the wall and the floor to let light in, and if she could just fire a portal into that hole…

The gun made a mechanical _splat _as a portal was fired in between the crevice and into whatever room was below the floor. She backed up and then looked up at the orange portal on top of the pillar, and realized the flaw in her plan. Chell had no way of getting on top of the pillar to the orange portal without the help of her blue portal, which was inside the crevice. She heaved a disappointed sigh, and craned her neck to see if there was any way to see inside the orange portal.

From her current angle she couldn't see much, but there were a few words scrawled on the wall inside the orange portal. Squinting her eyes to see, she made out the words.

**_The cake is a lie._**


	5. Chapter 4

**_"Less than an hour now," Henry said, putting his finished stack of papers to the side of his desk._**

**_"I know," said Doug, nearly finished with his stack. "Theres a countdown clock on the screen right there."_**

**_"Oh, a countdown clock is boring. What do you say we sneak down to the Main AI Chamber and see her in action? Hmm? Just for a bit?" Asked Henry, talking excitedly._**

**_"I don't know," said Doug, wearily. "I'm kind of tired. I think I'll just watch the video they're streaming up here."_**

**_"Fine, suit yourself," said Henry, grabbing his things. "But trust me, this is something you'll wish you'd have witnessed in person."_**

**06/19**

The bright white neon sign shone the numbers. _Only nineteen of these? _She thought. Only recently had she realized the big signs at the beginning of each chamber had a purpose.

_Well, thirteen left, _she thought. She began to look around the chamber she was in. There was a very big difference from the rest of the chambers. The look had changed dramatically, and the white, sterile hospital-type environment was gone. The floors and ceiling were the same, but the walls had changed to a dark, metallic brown color, and was divided into small squares. In the center of the chamber were two things. On the ceiling was a strange, white cone. There were three prongs protruding from each side. On the floor, a few feet away from the thing on the ceiling, was something almost the same as the other, but instead of a cone, it was hollow in the middle, and looked like it was ready to catch something.

The voice came on once again. "While safety is one of many Enrichment Center goals, the Aperture Science High Energy Pellet seen to the left of the chamber can, and has caused permanent disabilities such as vaporization. Please be careful."

The cone-shaped thing on the ceiling spit out a shining yellow ball. It bounced from ceiling to floor, up and down, until eventually it faded and disappeared. A new one got released form the cone after the old one has disappeared.

Chell considered trying to grab it, but thought better of it. _It said it could cause vaporization, _Chell thought. _Grabbing it is probably not the best idea. _

She looked over at the catcher shaped thing on the ground. _So it's like the cube and the button, I just have to put the deadly photon into its hole, _thought Chell. _Simple enough._

As if having read her mind, an orange portal formed on the ground underneath the launcher. Chell aimed her gun at the spot on the ceiling that was above the catcher, and fired. A blue portal formed, and then the ball came through it shortly after. When the ball collided with the catcher, it fizzled, and the catcher retracted its 'claws' on the side. A line of circles that went from the catcher to a platform in the back of the room lit up, and then the platform began to raise. Chell began to walk towards it, but just as she was about to step onto it, the ground below her collapsed.

And she fell.

Coughing, Chell looked up. She was about 30 feet below the test chamber she had fallen out of. The boots she was wearing absorbed some of the fall, but there was an immense pain in her back.

_If they're going to try to kill me, they're going to have to do better than that,_ Chell thought. She began to look around where she had fallen to. Pieces of floor tile and metal were scattered around her, probably from the hole she had fallen out of. She was standing on a catwalk, about two feet in width, and extending so far she couldn't see where it ended.

She couldn't hear anything, and all around her was darkness. She took a look behind her, and saw anything catwalk jutting off from the one she was on. She walked towards it, and then onto it. At the end of _this _catwalk, there were three doors. Trying the first two, Chell saw that they were locked, and moved onto the third one. This one was unlocked, however, and she went inside. She found herself in an observation-type room. A glass window overlooked a test chamber. Craning her neck to see the start of the chamber, she saw that the bright screen read **08/19**. _I would be skipping two tests, _thought Chell. _Maybe that means I can get out of here quicker. _Looking around the small observation room, she saw a computer monitor. Raising it up, she threw it against the glass. It shattered, and Chell climbed into the test chamber.

"What the- how did I miss- I- I- I- t-the Enrichment Center does not appreciate destroying vital test monitoring equipment. Please continue the test," the computer voice said.

_Did that thing just refer to itself as I? It can't be sentient… can it?" _thought Chell. Thinking herself silly, she began to try to figure out how to solve the test.

**_10… 9… 8… the bright red countdown clock said as it went into the mere seconds before GLaDOS was activated. Doug was exited, to say the least. If this project was a success, his paycheck got tripled. That meant he could live in luxury, and maybe get proper medication for his-_**

**_Doug shook the thought from his mind. Now was not the time to focus on his schizophrenia, now was the time for science. 5… 4… 3… the clock read. 'Two seconds now,' thought Doug. _**

**_2… 1… The entire facility shook. Lights flickered in Doug's office and in the hallway outside. A deep rumbling sounded from below him. A monitor to his left flickered on. The broadcast of the activation._**

**_A slightly static-y picture displayed the computer itself, inside the Main AI Chamber. It was a massive structure, with three large circles at the top, leading down into a mass of technology and wires that had several ports sticking out of it. These were what Henry and Doug were assigned to. The ports were to be used as a failsafe device, in case the computer ever needed to have an emotion added or regulated to prevent it from going insane. In this event, a round personality core would be attached to the port. Each core could have any emotion, ranging from anger to making the computer a complete moron. There were currently no cores attached to the computer, and Doug hoped that there wouldn't need to be. He wanted the computer to be perfect, and besides, it took around three weeks to make a personality core. That work would undoubtedly be assigned to him, and it was an extremely difficult process._**

**_The 'body' part of the computer went down and converged at a point, where a head in the shape of a half circle was placed. On the head was a small, yellow eye. GLaDOS was designed to have a personality, so Aperture thought it was fitting to make it slightly resemble a person._**

**_With one more surge of power that made the lights flicker, the computer began to speak._**

**_"Hello, and welcome to the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center."_**


End file.
